Haiti’s animals thank you
Feb 3, 2010
© WSPA / IFAW
Your donations made it possible for our disaster management team to act swiftly, responding to the Haitian government’s request for our help within hours of our receiving an official invitation.
See a slideshow of the Haiti relief efforts so far>>
Working together for animals
In the first days following the earthquake in Haiti, WSPA and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) came together to set up the Animal Relief Coalition for Haiti (ARCH) so that animal welfare organisations wanting to help the animals of Haiti could work together and take joint action for maximum impact.
ARCH now has 19 member organisations acting together in Haiti, and you can follow reports from our joint efforts by visiting WSPA’s Animals in Disasters blog.
A team from ARCH has just completed an assessment of the animal welfare situation in Haiti, meeting with officials from various agencies including the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture, in order to develop an effective course of action for the coming weeks and months.
The team found limited need for emergency animal relief work but there is considerable work ahead in the medium and long term.
Taking care to the community
The main animal welfare challenge ahead of Haitians in the medium term is vaccination drives to prevent the threat of diseases – especially those diseases that can jump from animal to human populations – spreading amongst this vulnerable community.
ARCH is equipped to meet these needs through an international team from various ARCH member organisations, who will travel to parts of Haiti outside the capital and administer veterinary treatment, vaccination and feed for both companion animals and livestock.
The ARCH staff will operate on a weekly rotation in order to offer continued technical support to this team.
Long road to recovery
© WSPA
Given the complete collapse of infrastructure in Haiti, the main challenge ahead is the reconstruction of veterinary infrastructure. ARCH is planning several options, which could include:
Massive vaccination for cows, sheep, goats, horses/donkeys and other hoofed animals
Setting up epidemiology surveillance networks on Newcastle and Gumboro diseases, which specifically infect chickens and poultry
Public awareness campaigns to encourage people to bring their animals to the facilities that ARCH is helping to put in place
Refresh and train vets/public health (human) workers
Setting up solar powered clinics and/or mobile clinics as well as purchasing equipment such as thermoses, ice coolers, refrigerators etc (some medications need to be kept cool) to support vaccination and treatment operations
Purchasing other consumables as required (medicines, vaccines, etc) and distributing these to departmental/communal/local structures.
Working with Haiti
As with any recovery operation that WSPA undertakes after a disaster, we are working in close consultation with the government and international agencies.
At present we are in the process of working out a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Haiti, in order to plan the most effective way to rebuild and reinforce the country’s veterinary infrastructure.
Although we are working with a proposal that could cost in excess of $1.2M, working together with our partners in ARCH means this financial challenge will be shared amongst us.
WSPA thanks you
If you would still like to donate, the money you contribute to WSPA’s Animals in Disasters fund will be used to finance both the immediate and the continuing, long term recovery work for Haiti.
If we raise more money than is required for the Haiti programme, we will invest donations in WSPA’s fund to prepare for any future disasters in other parts of the world.
Once again, thank you for supporting WSPA’s work. Your generosity allows us to respond to crises with the urgency required.
Follow WSPA’s work in Haiti on our Animals in Disasters blog>>
Find out more about WSPA's disaster management work>>
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